Euro 2024 group stage draw

Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dortmund, Leipzig, Gelsenkirchen, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf are the host cities.

And as for those playoffs, to be played in March:

Semi-finals – Path A: Poland vs Estonia, Wales vs Finland
Semi-finals – Path B: Israel vs Iceland, Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Ukraine
Semi-finals – Path C: Georgia vs Luxembourg, Greece vs Kazakhstan

Final – Path A: Wales/Finland vs Poland/Estonia
Final – Path B: Bosnia-Herzegovina/Ukraine vs Israel/Iceland
Final – Path C: Georgia/Luxembourg vs Greece/Kazakhstan

By six o’clock tonight UK time – these things can drag on, though we are told it will take 20 minutes of ball-pulling amid 50 minutes of hoopla – we will know who 21 of the 24 finalists will be playing and where. The playoffs don’t get sorted until March but no matter, there are Black Forest mansions to be booked for those already qualified.

How does the draw work? Well, here’s your pots:

Pot 1

Germany (hosts), Portugal, France, Spain, Belgium, England

Pot 2

Hungary, Türkiye, Romania, Denmark, Albania, Austria

Pot 3

Netherlands, Scotland. Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czechia

Pot 4

Italy, Serbia, Switzerland, Play-off winner A, Play-off winner B, Play-off winner C

Hosts Germany are seeded in Pot 1 and automatically allocated to Group A in position A1

A further six pots (A, B, C, D, E, F) are required to draw the respective team’s position in each group. Pots B-F contain four balls each to represent the positions available in each group (eg B1, B2, B3 and B4). Pot A contains only three balls for the positions A2, A3 and A4 in Group A, since Germany will occupy position A1.

So that’s that.